


Falling to the Surface

by Admiral_Red



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 22:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1487104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Admiral_Red/pseuds/Admiral_Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I will," you tell yourself. "I'll kill him myself." </p><p>You grab him and haul him to shore. You don’t kill him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling to the Surface

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Trigger warnings for suicidal thoughts and issues of self-worth. Plans for two more chapters.

Hail Hydra. Finish the mission. Hail Hydra. Finish the mission.

You are the Winter Soldier, Hydra’s golden boy, the organization’s star assassin. You bleed for the cause. You kill for the cause. You finish the mission.

“Then you better finish it.”

The mission looks up at you. His eyes are dazed, hooded by the circling shadows of vulture-like unconsciousness. But still he looks at you with them, hooking into your wild wide eyes with one-minded determination, and they pierce through you with…

Resignation. Sadness. Certainty. He wasn’t lying. This man knows you. Not the you that you are now, but the…

Your mind hazes. His eyes are so blue. Finish the mission.

“Because I’m with you till the end of the line.”

With that mumbled declaration, the mission’s eyes slide shut. Your fist is still raised. Bring it down. Finish him. Finish the—

He falls from under you, the Helicarrier disintegrating in its final throes of death. You grab an overhead beam and as you watch his decent, an image sears past the back of your eyes. This is not the first time you’ve seen this man shrink in your sights. He disappears into the water, and the image shorts out as quickly as it came. You almost physically grab out into the haze. What was that?

There is a feeling in your in your chest you can’t identify. You are no stranger to pain – it is the sensation you know most intimately. But this is a different pain, something you may have felt before but cannot remember. It is confusing, and terrifying, and you want it to remain as much as you want it to stop.

You let go of the beam, and drop into the water below. You see the man – the mission – fifteen feet under, a solemn corpse in the green abyss. Hail Hydra. Finish the mission.

 _I will,_ you tell yourself. _I will kill him myself._

You grab him and haul him to shore. You don’t kill him.

* * *

After trudging up the banks of the Potomac, you head for the rendezvous point because that is the only thing you think you can do. Though you don’t remember anything beyond five hours ago, you know instinctively what will be done to you—

_(You didn’t finish the mission)_

—and you shrink and tremble within your skin. But at least the men who herd you from place to place will give you purpose, and you won’t feel so lost.

You reach the rendezvous; it’s a little alleyway in Chinatown cluttered with trash and rusted rebar from an old fire escape. You look around. There is no nondescript van, no men with concealed weaponry and Kevlar under their clothing. The only person there is a homeless man with a black trash bag, his beard an explosion of white against his dark skin. He looks you up and down, taking in your metal arm, your matted hair and tattered clothing, the expression on your face. You are still soaked from the river.

He rifles through his trash bag and pulls out a rumpled green army jacket. He holds it out. “Evenings are getting warmer, anyway,” he mutters.

There is no one else here. You take it.

* * *

You sit silent and still, head bowed like a prisoner waiting for execution, a little ways off from the homeless man. There is nothing else you can do.

After giving you the jacket, the he has not acknowledged your presence. He spends most of his time mumbling to himself. Them no good lying mother fuckers, they think they can do that? Kaci, put that pie back on the ledge, ain’t no one having that till after dinner.

Most of what he says is incomprehensible. You hang onto his voice anyway; his face isn’t one of those you’ve been trained to obey, but he’s here where your handlers should be, and letting your mind believe that this man is Hydra keeps, albeit tenuously, wild thoughts and the cold dread in your stomach at bay. And you do not have to think of… you do not have to think.

“What’s your name, boy?” your disheveled superior demands mid-mumble, startling you as much as you can be startled. You look at him. He’s staring at the brick wall across from both of you, like he has been the last three hours.

“I…” This is not a question you have had any need of answering. Your handlers refer to you as the asset. That man in the Helicarrier said your name was—

You shrug. “I don’t know.”

He snorts, his voice wry and clear. “Don’t know mine either. Call me Bill.” For a moment, Bill says nothing else. Then he continues mumbling.

* * *

The sun dips below the jagged grey skyline of the city, and after Bill wraps a ratty blanket around himself and slumps into sleep, you spend the night shivering violently in the silence. You can no longer lie to yourself. They left you. They abandoned you. You know why? Because you are a failure. Because you didn’t finish the mission. Why didn’t you finish the mission? You worthless piece of scrap, you left the mission alive, you didn’t finish the mission—

“His eyes were closed,” you rasp. “He wasn’t moving. He’s dead.”

 _But he’s not._ You watched the rise and fall of his chest. You _waited_ to see it, to see the telltale signs of life in his body. And then you _left_ , without _finishing the mission_ , how dare you not finish the mission, FINISH THE MISSION—

You wrap your mechanical hand around your throat. The thoughts in your head quiet, and you groan, sagging in relief. Even through your glove, your hand is warm from whatever gears or processors which are constantly at work under the metal dermis. You can feel your fingers hard against the bone of your jaw, your palm grinding against your Adam’s apple.

You didn’t finish the mission, you think again, but this time the thought feels almost comforting. There is protocol for this. You cannot quite remember how you know, but it is ingrained deep within your conscious, surfacing now when you need it most, when you need to know what to do. What do you do with an asset that doesn’t do what it’s told? What do you do with a machine that does not perform its function? What do you do with a broken toy?

Unbidden, Pierce’s voice ghosts through your mind. _You get rid of it._

Your hand pushes into your throat, tightening around your neck. It takes several minutes, but you begin to gasp for air that you can’t reach. Your convulse, your chest heaving and your legs flailing, but your metal arm and it remains still and unyielding as it crushes your larynx. It’s made to be capable of this task, after all. No need for additional weapons, no mess. The only thing left will be a body that can easily be disposed of, or dissected for research. A team from Hydra is probably watching you now, waiting for you to become useful again in death.

You slide down, staring up at the city sky, at the constellation of lights that are skyscraper windows and the signals of passing planes. Your face is wet. Your legs are cold. You have never felt more at ease. Faintly, someone is yelling, and you hear as if from a great distance the discordant sound of metal meeting metal, almost like the harsh ring of your fist meeting that man’s shield. The lights go out at the edges of your vision, and you let yourself think of that man, the man with those dazed, piercing eyes, who fell like you are now falling, like you feel you have fallen before. And suddenly you are terrified, because there are so many questions, so many things you want to know. Who is the man, why does he know you, why is there so little you can remember, why do you feel like you have anything to remember at all, but it’s too late, too late, too late—

You hear the crunch of your collarbone giving under the rusted rebar before you feel it. The sensation is sharp and excruciating, and it gives you back control over the limb that’s killing you. It releases your neck to yank the rebar out of Bill’s hands and throw it aside, and you allow yourself to use your first heaving breath to cry out, just once, in pain.

“—ord Jesus got damn Christ! What in the got damn hell were you thinkin’ ya fuckin asshole, what the police gonna think when they see a dead white man by my stupid ass, huh? They ain’t gonna think I didn’t got nothin’ to do with it, I’ll tell you now—”

The world, seemingly distant before, had rushed back as if filling a vacuum. The smell of urine and smog fills your nose, and the streetlights are bright in your eyes. Dogs are barking, someone in a nearby apartment is yelling in Mandarin to shut up, and Bill is towering over you, on the tail end of his rant.

“—so you better either get your fuckin act together or haul your ass somewhere else to croak! You fuckin feel me, boy?” Bill barks, pointing a threatening finger at you.

You blink up at him. Your head hurts, your throat hurts, your shoulder hurts, your ears are ringing. You can feel the pulse of your heart through your battered veins, and you are breathing.

“Thanks,” you say.

* * *

A brunette, middle-aged dame cards her hand through your hair. Her voice is no-nonsense but kind. You clutch the rough, faded edge of her skirt. She’s warm. She smells like home.

“James,” she says.

“ _I know you.”_

You turn. It’s that man. He’s in that outfit, the one with the blue white and red, red red blossoming from his stomach. He’s looking at you again with those eyes, bright through the blood, and he’s so scrawny, punk never knew when not to pick a fight, you could never keep him outta trouble but you always tried to be there to get him out of it—

He looms over you, larger than life like he always was even Before, and he makes his way towards you as the world falls out of the sky, and he’s closer and closer even though you’re stumbling back, as far back as you can, frightened of everything that lies just out of your mind’s reach. His lips part, words breathing life into your body like air.

“ _Your name is—”_

You wake.

Immediately everything fades, the woman and the small, proud man dissolving into the weak light of dawn. You grasp frantically at the straws, and manage to hold on to the one piece that’s left in the noise.

James Buchanan Barnes. That’s your name.


End file.
